I’m still here, drawing and painting a lot

I’ve been quiet on the blog. But no worries, I’m drawing and painting. A lot. I’ve just been keeping to myself for a while.

When you are silent for a bit, it becomes harder to start again. Where to start? What to share? I’ve been working with some of my favorite teachers, revisiting lessons from the past too and trying out new ways to paint. I’ve kept scanning the work, kept track of it all. It’s a stash. I’ll just start somewhere and find a new rhythm for posting in the coming weeks.

I started writing today and found I like to do some posts giving credit to my teachers, I may call them gratitude posts. I’ve been wanting to do some of that for a while, now is as good a time as any. So here’s a gratitude post, for people who inspired me to start teaching drawing myself.

I started teaching a drawing and painting club for teens, girls of 13 and 14 years old. So I’ve been collecting inspiration for lessons, making demo pieces. Lots to do. Very inspiring. Making a list of lessons, working with line and shape, assignments meant to work on building skill and to build imagination too. I like to think that drawing is like playing, it can make you laugh sometimes (and yes, it also makes you cry sometimes). It’s a bit like sport: you practice , you sometimes fail, sometimes have wonderful results. In sports, we fail a lot before slowly becoming a better player. It’s similar in drawing. We can all learn and grow skill.

So back to my question, what to share? I could show you demos. I’ve been inspired by prompts from books I love, like Drawing Lab by Carla Sonheim. That book and the first online drawing lessons I took from her, inspire me again and again. I’ve also revisited online lessons I’ve taken over the past few years. I love Carla Sonheims classes and use all kinds of warm up and skill building exercises I learned from her.

I also use exercises and prompts I’ve learned from Diane Culhane. For instance from her online class ‘Between Speech and Silence‘. Going back to those assignments, and thinking about their use, made me see new options, new uses. I already shared some of those drawings earlier. I’m now using them in the studio as a way to warm up and think about my paintings. The painting I shared above started with drawing like this one.

Warm up drawing, in a sketchbook I keep in the studio.

I find I rather love drawing in a continuous line, making mistake (no big deal), continuing, finding ideas and running with it. Like what happened in the drawing above, it started with a snail (that already was in a painting), I decide to make a pair of them. I liked the idea and went on drawing pairs of animals. Sometimes not knowing where to go, and just doodling a bit. I end up with some elements that are a bit weird and also a few fun drawings. Some of them end up in a painting.

Sketchbook play in the studio.

I’ll be sharing some more about painting soon. There’s more sources of inspiration, more gratitude there.